


Change of Plans

by Zephyrius29



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Butterfly Effect, Canonical Character Death, F/F, F/M, Gen, extreme pettiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 05:55:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21958486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zephyrius29/pseuds/Zephyrius29
Summary: Enraged with how Kaede stole Rantaro's attention from her in the nail painting event, Tsumugi throws out the entire season's script, having both killed chapter 1 instead. However, maybe throwing your entire season's plan to the wayside from the get-go without thinking it through isn't the best way to run a TV show that was already hanging on by a thread.
Relationships: Akamatsu Kaede/Tsumugi Shirogane (one-sided), Amami Rantaro/Tsumugi Shirogane (one-sided)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Change of Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Protocol27](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Protocol27).



> This is a Secret Santa gift for someone I share a discord server with. Happy holidays to everyone

With Danganronpa teetering on the edge of success, Tsumugi successfully brought it back to safety from the brinks of cancellation with the previous few seasons. It was easily the biggest smash hit of any show within the past 50 years! Everyone was raving over her excellent usage of tropes, and being an expert in all things anime and Danganronpa helped salvage it as it went back to highs fans said haven't been reached since the second season! The one that put Danganronpa on the map! All while having only scrap heaps that show the series jumped the shark like the monokubs. So, when asked to do season 53, continuing her change of writers being ditched after only one or two for decades as a revolving door of what would've been failure if not for the extreme die-hard base, Tsumugi accepted that honor and began crafting season 53.

Like the previous seasons, everything was going swell. With the ever so bombastic Kaede leading the crew, the season started off with a bang. Everything was setting up perfectly with the First Blood perk, and everything was set up for Miu to make the first kill against Kirumi who found out and failed to fight back. Sure it'd have cut Kirumi off a bit early, but someone had to go. All of this would happen while unfortunately missing the time limit, and cause a class trial. With her timid demeanor, the signs of struggle, and her involvement with the cameras being obvious enough, Miu would easily have cracked soon and be a perfect first, easy, and safe trial to fully kick off the season. Set up a few things here and there such as Kaede's stubbornness being a downfall, Rantaro's missing memories and the Ultimate Hunt, introduce the other characters and set up their arcs and it'd have been perfect. It was even going as such until….that happened.

She designed Kaede to be extremely flirty, something to make her playful at first and even open up potential romance. If there's anything that the fans ate up the most, it was definitely shipping, so having a protag like this seemed like such a great idea. Hell, she even played around and had her own creation call her sexy. Kaede was pretty alluring and Tsumugi earned a few compliments for her hard work. Nothing was wrong there, and she was even considering a romance with her in advance for when she was planned to return for season 54. Everything seemed perfect. However, she didn't expect it to go against her own desires! Anger was a hideous thing. As someone who's written an array of irascible and soon to be raucous personalities she knew how easy it was for a person to get lost in their own anger. She trained herself repeatedly to avoid losing her composure, and throughout her time with the series she never lost her temper. She also wrote most things out so she should've known where it was going. She left some blanks in for the sake of surprising her to make the act easier to pull off, but it should've all been completely inconsequential.

Despite that, no human language could describe the rage she had when Kaede was having her nails painted by that fucking faux womanizer. She had to admit, he was certainly pretty, and she maaaay have snuck in some self indulgence with him in a previous season so she shouldn't judge, but it still wasn't fair for Rantaro and Kaede to be flirting directly in front of her like that! The absolute nerve of some people. She knew she just couldn't let this slide. Team Danganronpa let her have control over the show with how hopeless they were otherwise so she could make any changes she saw fit. It wouldn't have been too harmful to say, swap both of their roles to die first now. Kirumi could just die the next chapter and Miu, well she didn't know what to do with but as long as her inventions didn't mess with too much things would be fine. Mechanic types had a large impact before and even the likes of season 1's Alter Ego could be contained with the control she had. There was absolutely nothing to worry about going through with this!

The first trial came along and proved her very very wrong. Rantaro could be used as foreshadowing and Kaede's death went smoothly enough, granted she had to rush in her dynamic with Shuichi for it to work as a protag swap, something Tsumugi wasn't too well versed in pulling off let alone on such short notice. But those weren't the issues she faced, no. Korekiyo and Ryoma just had to be too smart for their own damn good and almost catch onto her! Luckily they didn't have enough evidence, but if they did the former's pointing of her going to the bathroom and the latter's mentions of the cameras were far too close for her comfort. Needless to say, they had to go as well.

Ryoma was simpleg the upcoming motive, reworking that into a tragic death of someone struggling for personal improvement was done before, but this one would be special with how hollow he was right as Kirumi had the perfect timing to off him. A smooth send-off and excellent setup for the main trios of Tenko/Angie/Himiko and Kaito/Maki/Shuichi within the trial. Everything there was perfectly done as Korekiyo was then the next killer. He had enough hinting beforehand for her to bank on her changing him with the Flashback lights to become more insistent on his sister without coming off as too odd. Off Angie and Tenko while they were at it and there was the setup for one of the "survivors" in Himiko.

Things continued to go smoothly as she finally found a way to get rid of Miu. Have Kokichi kill her indirectly in order to fully prop him up as this seasons batshit crazy antagonist. The fan reactions she gauged from Kiibo would initially be sad from no more maintenance scenes, but if there was anything that got more attention than blatant fanservice it was the countless arguments over the crazier rival types. In order for this to happen Gonta, an intended survivor, unfortunately had to go out, but having a tear-jerking reluctant killer wasn't something done on a while so it'd seem fresh. Was a shame that she had to do it though, she felt some genuine care for him in particular and almost broke her plain act a few times to show it. Oh well, if she didn't make sacrifices then she'd never have gotten to her position, so it was something that had to be done. 

From there on out however was when everything turned to absolute hell. She didn't fully predict Kokichi taking that much control over Miu's inventions. The tension between him Kaito and Maki was what she was going for as the traditional chapter 5 major climax, but a mystery trial was out of the question! She had to count her lucky stars that Shuichi bailed her out as she couldn't risk giving up on her act until the next chapters investigation, and for that she almost felt a little sad about the existential crisis she was just about to give him. Almost. Despite her other thoughts and deviations from this season and the ones before, the one constant would always be the endings. Using them to bring back characters for the next season was something that never got old for the audience, and while repetitive she never lost the joy of being Junko Enoshima and the previous characters of this series. Even though cosplay was a front, she could only pull it off if she cared that much about it. Being the characters, her own twisted version, all to bring in a different type of despair. She could never hope to fully replicate Junko's pleasure of it, but she had to have certainly gotten close. Why else would she be crazy enough to bring this series back from the brink of cancellation? For the world that needed something to scratch its itch? Possibly, she did love flattery and reveled in the success. But to be insane enough to run this and even participate on numerous occasions, even with a guaranteed safety net, was something that requires a special breed of cultish devotion.

Sadly, this didn't play out. Everything was back on track to go smoothly again. The hints she threw with Rantaro last minute, using Kaede's death for Shuichi to spark everything then close it in her reveal to lead into the cosplay, the struggle with Kiibo as the audience, everything was there. But….the rejection of hope was an unforeseen thing. She didn't have the time to plan out all of her changes so admittedly she was winging the ending in hopes that it'd go on normally. She thought it was going well with the audience too, but their vote truly meant that everything she worked for unravelled in an instant. Tsumugi had to face the reality of the situation. She failed to control her characters. She failed the series that was only relying on her, this….fictional thing. She let herself be blinded by her own pettiness which did show that fiction impacted her, and forgot that it could do the same for the others. For this mistake, she had no qualms dying along with the series. She stared at the rubble she was about to be crushed by, and had no regrets other than just not rewriting the romance around her.


End file.
